Can mental screening stop terrorists?

Padding travelers down at the airport and making them walk through a metal detector with their shoes off may not be enough to prevent terrorist attacks. So Homeland Security has spent some $40 million on two projects to figure out whether it can use nonverbal cues to screen for malicious intent. The Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet outlines an interview with Bob Burns, No. 2 at the Homeland Security Advanced Research Project Agency. Though many in the scientific community have been quick to dismiss the work, Homeland Security researchers believe they might be able to use devices like video game boards and biometric sensors or analyze minute facial twitches to detect hostile plans. Whether it will ever yield any results is unclear.

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